What Kamski Left Behind
by BrickSheep
Summary: "I believe that is an android prototype willed to Howard Stark after Elijah Kamski's death." Elijah Kamski? Now that is a name that Tony knows.
1. Chapter 1

Tony does not typically look through his father's previous possessions

Call him sentimental. Whatever. Even Tony isn't sure as to why he's rummaging through the storage room dedicated to his father's belongings.

It's not a place he likes to be. Too many memories and ugh… emotions. Yuck.

It had been years since he last saw many of the personal items that littered the floor. None of it was organized. There was dust everywhere. The windows were covered in ancient, moth-eaten, curtains. The only light that comes into the room is the third-grade hanging light on the ceiling.

He can barely look at anything around the forsaken room. He sees pictures, framed, with stories that held a history of his family's outings. He also sees things that his father had brought from overseas. Most of what he had carried home came in the forms of tribal art, expensive relics, and memorabilia. Some of it was familiar while other pieces were lost on him.

Then he finds… the… thing…

Human?

 _(Humans don't have bleach white skin…)_

Dead?

 _(Dead? Was it even alive in the first place?)_

Had his father killed someone, stuffed them in this storage room, and hoped that no one would ever find the body?

Tony finds his eyes lingering on the limp form of a humanoid being leaning against the wall. It had been tucked in the farthest corner. Tony might not have found it had he not decided to venture deeper into the cluttered mess. Regardless, Tony was unsure as to how he was to feel about his father being an apparent murderer until he realizes that the apparent human did not show any signs of decay. All he saw was a thick layer of dust covering the stranger's entire body (not to mention the cake of dust on top of his head).

Tony gulps.

He stretches out his hand.

Holds out a finger.

Poke.

The stranger does not move.

Tony lets out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

Wait. Why was he relieved? There was still a body here!

Not dead… okay… but still… it was human right…?

No? Then what about a realistic human-looking doll? Life-sized. Just like how his father liked th- ugh - eyuck - HNGMF.

Bad image. Bad image.

"Jarvis?" Tony calls out.

"Sir?"

"Is everything in this room on file?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me why this guy," Tony gestures to the supposed doll, "is here?"

"I believe that is an android prototype willed to Howard Stark after Elijah Kamski's death."

Elijah Kamski? Now that is a name that Tony knows. Elijah Kamski was a legend in the technological world. He had been a genius that had advanced the progress of technology, advised his father on certain technological developments, and he was also the man who created a program called AMANDA. Said program was essentially the first steps of mankind creating AIs. Tony had looked into Kamski's work many times when creating Jarvis.

"An android prototype, huh?"

"Correct," Jarvis answers Tony.

"Does he have a name?"

"Mr. Stark has referred to him as 'Connor' multiple times in his restored journal entries."

"So does he work?"

"No."

"No?" Tony stresses in his exasperation. "What was the point in giving him away if he doesn't even work, to begin with?"

"I am afraid I do not know," Jarvis answers, "as my knowledge of your father's dealings is limited."

"Hmm," Tony hums as he takes a closer look at the prototype android. His simple inspection made his curiosity run like wildfire. He stares at Connor as if he had suddenly been issued a hidden challenge from his deceased old man. That is why he asks, "Do we have any information on Kamski's living descendants?"

"He has one daughter," Jarvis answers immediately, "named Chloe."

"Yes. Yes. Chloe," Tony tries out the name. "Maybe she'll have something on this."

"Would you like me to search for her current residence?"

"Yes. Do that."

It takes him two days until Tony finds himself in Detroit. Detroit, while not the safest place in the world, was the city that brought up Elijah Kamski. He doesn't have to stay in the city for long as he travels to Chloe Kamski's home. Her home resided on the outskirts of the city.

He had called beforehand so that he wouldn't have to drop in on her unannounced. That is why Chloe answers the door in anticipation of his arrival. Tony, with his endless charm, made certain that she had all of the pleasantries of a greeting until she had purposefully directed the conversation away from their small talk.

"What might I do for you?" She asks.

She leans back in an arm-chair that she had positioned out near the entrance of her home. Tony had taken a seat across from his and takes the opportunity to examine his host carefully. He first notices how little she resembled her father. He would not have guessed her to be Kamski's daughter in any other circumstances unless she had announced it to him personally.

"I was looking through my father's things." that is not how Tony usually starts conversations. This. This is the exception. "I found something that was given to my father after Mr. Kamski passed away."

"The android."

"An android pro-" he pauses, "uh… yes… the android."

"I know of him. Connor, right?"

He didn't know why he'd think she wouldn't know about him. Maybe it was because Tony himself hadn't known about the fact that there was an android gathering dust in his father's storage space? It was such a specific - obscure - thing too. I mean. Androids? Who talks about those sort of things every day.

If he had asked Chloe - at that moment - he would have heard one answer.

 _Elijah Kamski would talk about those sort of things every day._

"Yeah," Tony manages to say, "That's right."

Chloe smiles pleasantly. "I believe I have something that may be of assistance to you."

"Oh?" Tony's eyes light up in interest.

"Blueprints." Her explanation is short and clear.

Tony, for a moment, gets lost in his excitement. He thinks of finishing one of Elijah Kamski's works, doing what his father could not, and succeeding in creating one of the first androids.

But there has to be a catch.

"What is it you want in return?"

Chloe tilts her head to the side in an innocent-looking manner.

"I need nothing," she says. Tony was about to call BS until he hears her perk up, "Oh! Wait! There is something."

 _Knew it._

"I'd like to meet him when he wakes up."

Oh. Okay.

That was… easy? Hmm.

"Is that all?" Tony asks.

"Yes."

Tony spends some time in Detroit after his encounter with Chloe. His thoughts linger on her eagerness for him to bring Connor back to life. It was also weird that she had given him many of Kamski's research notes free of charge. Not many were willing to give away their family's life-work. Regardless, after hitting up a few excellent establishments, and staying in a high-class hotel for two nights, he decided that it would be better to start on Connor sooner or later.

Tony spends days simply scanning Connor's inner-workings.

He is quite hesitant to touch Connor. He doesn't want to destroy him on accident.

Tony scans all of Kamski's notes, blueprints, and puts them into a virtual database. He made certain to give Jarvis the acceptable permissions to go through all of Kamski's things. He would find himself asking Jarvis to look through Kamki's notes to determine how certain parts worked.

Like the weird circle thing on the side of Connor's forehead.

"It identifies the type of android he is-"

"Type?" Tony mumbles to himself. Was there more?

"And reflects his mood."

"Hmm," Tony grunts.

It takes two months for Tony to fully understand the ins and outs of Connor. He finds himself admiring Kamski's work, a lot, but he wouldn't say it was at fanboy levels. He could appreciate the work that Kamski put into the creation of Connor as a fellow enthusiast in technology. Connor had a lot of parts, programming, and mechanics that was years ahead of modern times.

"You better be worth it!" Tony huffs as he holds up a vial. It holds the latest version of _Thirium 310_ or, as Kamski put it, 'blue blood.' Connor had something similar to a human heart that would use this blue blood to properly function. Blue blood was definitely on his list of 'one of the most difficult things he's ever had to recreate.' It had taken him a whole three months.

Three months!

That's far too long! Nothing takes that long! Not with Tony Stark involved!

Two months scanning. Three months creating blue blood.

 _Five months-_

Hopefully, the satisfaction was worth all the damn work he had put into this android.

But Tony knew he'd get Connor to work. He would succeed where his father had failed.

He gets semi-success two days later.

"Optical units?"

"Operational," Jarvis replies.

"Audio processors?"

"Replaced and operational."

"Excellent," Tony says as he rubs his hands together in his excitement, "now that we've already given him the required thirium…"

Tony clears his throat.

Loud. Clear. Just like his old man.

"Connor."

Eye-lids fly open.

Tony feels a fire light in his chest. He is so excited that he doesn't notice that Connor hadn't made any movements except for opening his eyes. That is why, after a few seconds of triumph, Tony begins to notice that Connor hasn't responded to Tony's call.

"Connor?"

No response.

Tony calls out another name, "Jarvis?" As if the AI knows all the answers.

"Did you properly reboot him-"

"Reboot! Yes - yes - uh… wait…"

Tony thinks about the things necessary for such a thing and lets out the heaviest of sighs. Right. Right. He was so busy working on the physical parts of Connor that he had forgotten about his damn programming.

Programming.

Tony knows a thing or two about that.

"Looks like we'll have several more sleepless nights," Tony groans.

"I do not sleep, sir, so that statement is only applicable to you."

"Oh, shuddup!"

Two more weeks pass. Tony juggles a lot of his daily activities around Connor's repair. He cancels many of his meetings just to get more time with recreating Connor. He doesn't know when it happens, not really, but he starts thinking Connor as more of his own creation rather than the product of Kamski's genius imagination. Sure, he had to attribute a lot of Connor's coming about to Kamski's beaming intellect, but Tony had poured his heart out just to see Connor work properly.

Today is the day.

 _Today is the day._

"Jarvis?"

"I have no doubts, sir," Jarvis answers him.

Tony nods. He swallows air.

His throat is dry. Maybe he should have some water? It wouldn't take too long just to walk out and - and - he wouldn't delay this any longer. Not for the world. He had a satisfaction that deserved to be his! He was ready to embrace success with open arms!

"Connor."

Eye-lids fly open. Again.

Oh. But this time?

Connor's whole upper body shoots up.

Connor's eyes flicker around the room and take in everything. Tony knows, that at the moment, Connor must be seeing various blue screens flying in his vision due to his optical units. Half of those blue screens simply stated the percentage and levels of his working parts.

"How are you feeling?"

Connor looks at him. He blinks.

He blinks!

Hallelujah! The android blinks!

"Good."

He speaks too!

Tony's excitement bursts through the roof.

Good. Good! That's good! That's definitely good!

"What is today's month?"

"July."

"What is my name?"

"Tony Stark," he answers.

"Tell me about the weather today."

"Chances of precipitation at 0%. Expect a warm and sunny day."

Tony throws his hands up in victory. Connor tilts his head. Connor tilts his head. Damn! If that isn't the greatest technology that Tony has ever seen!

"Connor," Tony has the biggest of grins on his face. "Welcome to the world."

Connor answers, according to his programming, "Thank you."


	2. Chapter 2

"Who is this?"

Tony beams, "This is Connor! A state of the art android!"

"You must be Virginia Potts," Connor holds out his hand politely for a shake.

"Yes, but everyone calls me Pepper," she confirms as she stares at his hand. Connor continues to hold out his hand, unmoving, taking no offense to her reluctance in shaking it. "So this is the android you've been working on for months?"

"The one and only!" Tony can't contain the joy from his words.

Pepper glances at Tony and then back at Connor's hand. She reaches for his hand and gives him a firm shake. "Pleasure."

Connor smiles. He smiles a really weird smile that Tony knows is an attempt to follow basic human 'friendliness' in greetings.

"You can call on him for whatever you need," Tony explains to her, "and I've set him up so that he has direct communication with Jarvis! Jarvis will send him to you if you ever need any manual work done."

"I have assistants for that," Pepper sighs.

"You never know when you'll need an extra hand," Tony shrugs with a lopsided smile. Pepper sees his happiness and can't help but form her own smile. Tony's mood lifts her own. "Just don't hurt him too much. He's my baby."

Pepper raises a brow. "Your baby?"

"Hell yeah!"

"That's the sort of terms you use for your _cars_ Tony."

"I'll have you know that I created some of those automobiles-"

"He's not a car," Pepper interrupts. She then looks Connor up and down. "Or a baby."

"Mr. Stark may call me whatever he likes," Connor interjects.

"He doesn't mind!" Tony says in elation.

"It's strange if another grown man calls another grown man his baby."

"I am not a grown man, Ms. Potts," Connor explains, "I am an RK800. An Android model created to assist Mr. Stark."

"No but you _look_ like one," she tells him.

Connor says nothing to that.

"Enough of confusing Connor," Tony waves at Pepper dismissively. "I've got tons of things that I need to catch up on now that he's up and running."

"Speaking of which," Pepper says, "you have an appointment with Nick Fury."

"That old kook again?"

"You've been neglecting his calls for months."

"Why should that change now?"

"Because you're the leader of the Avengers," Pepper scolds Tony like a child.

Tony simply huffs and folds his arms across his chest.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

After introducing Connor to Pepper - Tony made certain to introduce Connor to many of the staff members as well. He couldn't have the employees at the front desk denying Connor any entry. Then again, even if they did, Jarvis would simply comm them and tell them to let him in.

Tony gets a lot of his things in order before he drags Connor to Detroit.

Chloe waits for them.

Tony doesn't break promises.

Okay - well - except for that _one time…_

He shivers at the memory.

Pepper was _not_ a person to break promises with.

Chloe welcomes them with open arms. She shows the same exhilaration that Tony had when Connor had first woken up. She circles around Connor in inspection, checking him up and down, and Tony stands to the side to watch.

Chloe then glances at Connor's LED.

She raises her hand and her fingers gently touch the side of her own forehead.

Strange.

"Did you know what his original purpose was for?" She distracts herself with a question as her hand falls back to her side.

Tony shakes his head. "No."

"He was created to assist in police investigations. Homicide."

So _that's_ why he had a whole crap-ton of features that Tony hadn't understood. He had been tempted to remove half of them but didn't on the account that he might have to start from scratch again. One wrong move could be the biggest mistake.

"Why is that?"

Chloe shrugs.

"Haven't a clue."

He misses the flash that flies through her eyes.

Tony leaves Chloe's place after she has her fun asking Connor a billion questions about the way he works. Connor knows every little detail about how he functioned.

He takes Connor around Detroit to see how he'd react to things in person. Connor may have the entire web in his head, just like Jarvis, but that didn't mean he should miss out in the experiences of half of the places they went too. Tony had the full intent on showing Connor the wonders of humanity. He'd show him that there was a lot more to just being a _machine_ even if that was exactly what Connor was.

Connor seems to appreciate it.

Or, at least he pretends to because he always seeks to please everyone with his weird smile.

Which was _fine_ by the way. It was charming all on its own.

Their trip doesn't last too long. They're back at the Avengers Tower before the next evening and Tony does another check-up on Connor.

Then he sees something he had missed.

 _Small._ That's the only way to explain it.

 _Deviant string._

That's what it was titled. It had been carefully tucked into the corner of Connor's programming.

Tony had no idea what it did.

But Connor? He knows every detail about it right?

"What's this?" Tony points at the floating screen of information in front of him.

Connor glances over at Tony and his eyes scan the screen with precision.

"I am… unsure…"

Okay.

Okay? Wait a second.

"How do you not know?"

"It's not something I'm familiar with," Connor rephrases. "I do not how to interpret it."

"Lame," Tony huffs before taking a closer look at it.

Must be Kamski.

Of course, it had to be Kamski. Who else could it be?

What a mysterious guy. Tony had looked over his notes ten times over and still didn't know more about him. Then again, he looked over his _research_ notes. Not his diary.

Tony lets Connor free from his clutches after a thorough inspection. Once he sees that everything is in order - Tony proceeds to do tune-ups on his suits.

He had pushed off Iron Man for far too long.

It seems that tuning up his suits were a good idea.

Who would predict that they'd be attacked three weeks later?

"I am Paper Wasp!"

Pfft.

"You've ruined my life!"

Unlikely.

"Now I'll have to start all over again!"

Uh…

"And I'll start over _after_ I kill you!"

Paper Wasp was a scrawny-looking man with a baggy costume. The only things that looked sorta-good were the giant wasp wings that shot out of his back.

Paper Wasp, or whatever his name was, (what a forgettable guy) also had a gun he called a stinger.

Tony underestimated him.

He does that a lot. Ha. Damn.

Tony sniffs as the pain hits him like a fastball going at 100 mph.

Don't cry. Don't cry.

He flies into the wall. Totally destroys the thing.

Rude!

Connor stands to the side. He glances between the both as Tony lays in his wrecked lab.

"Do you need assistance? Mr. Stark?"

"Stay out of this!" Tony warns. He gets up, wipes his nose, and gets hit by another 'stinger' pellet.

He flies back. Again.

"You are injured-" Connor sounds worried. Connor never sounds worried. When did Connor ever sound worried?

"That's an order!" Tony says because he doesn't want Connor to get hurt. It took eight freaking months just to get him to walk around. The last thing Tony wanted was for Connor to have some irreparable damage.

Huh.

Maybe Connor wasn't actually so different from humans.

Tony realizes that he values Connor's life a lot.

Paper Wasp aims again.

"This time I'll kill you!"

 _'Like you weren't aiming to kill before?_ ' Tony thinks to himself.

Tony watches as Paper Wasp prepares to pull the trigger.

He also watches as Connor throws himself at Paper Wasp. He throws his whole body at him. _His whole body._

It knocks Paper Wasp off-guard and makes the man stumble.

"Get off of me!"

 _'Better work quick!"_ Tony's thoughts are loud as he holds up one of his gauntlets.

Ba'am.

One blast to the chest.

Connor jumps back.

Paper Wasp falls to the ground.

Alive. He should be. Tony made sure it was non-lethal.

Ah - but…

Tony sends his meanest glare to Connor.

His _baby._ His baby!

He could've gotten killed!

"Connor! I explicitly told you not to get involved! When did you ever start disobeying orders!?"

Connor straightens himself and looks Tony dead in the eyes.

"I could not let you suffer any further harm."

"You aren't equipped for fighting!" Tony says, disregarding that Connor knows how to fend off attackers defensively. "Anything could have happened!"

Tony was unaware that Connor had already mapped several different scenarios within his mind's eye. Connor had done what he did because he knew that it would be the most effective way to catch Paper Wasp off guard.

"I apologize," Connor says. It's not sincere. Not at all.

Tony lets a tired noise escape his lips.

Connor never disobeyed orders.

He never-

Tony pauses.

 **Deviant string.**

"We're going to have a long talk about this," Tony states. He has a tone that leaves no room for questioning.

Connor nods.

Tony does have that talk with Connor. He has a _really_ long talk with Connor as he checks him over for the third time that evening.

Tony looks at the deviant string. Again.

He glances back at Connor who sits like a kicked puppy.

"This might be a bit troublesome," Tony mumbles to himself as his finger hovers over the location of the deviant string. One swipe would throw it in the trash. It was easily retrievable, certainly, but it was the action that mattered. Getting rid of it meant that Connor wouldn't disobey again. Connor wouldn't do something against Tony's will.

He wouldn't-

He wouldn't…

He couldn't do that.

He wanted Connor to be his own person.

Was that a strange thing to think of an android? It's not like this hasn't happened before. Tony has had several thoughts of severely reworking Jarvis several times because of the things the AI would do for Tony. Wasn't Connor similar in that aspect? It's not like Connor had any ill-intent with his actions either. He had done it all to protect Tony.

Tony's hand falls to his side.

He pulls up a chair near to where Connor sits on his examination table.

Tony smiles.

"I'm done," he says, "scolding you, that is."

Connor blinks.

"Thank you. For protecting me."

Tony finds himself utterly fascinated by the expression that Connor pulls off.

A smile.

It's not the normal one.

It's so _human._

"I would do it again."


End file.
